Local school boards will be bringing their communication into the 21st century this year, with a few new methods of getting information to parents faster.
This year, the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board is launching an online registration portal today, a new notification system for parents and a new parent portal coming this fall to keep parents informed online of their child’s progress.
“We’re putting tools, programs and services in place that mirror that 21st-century learning model,” said Pauline Stevenson, communications manager with the Catholic board.
Any student who is new to the Catholic board, in any grade, can now use the simplified system.
The addition of new technology to communicate better with parents is part of the board’s strategic plan, Stevenson said.
“Before, it was a paper form,” she told BarrieToday. “The registration process is expensive, especially if you have students that are born outside of Canada coming in and there’s outside documentation they need. This process should make that a lot easier for parents.
“To move things online, it just makes things so much easier for parents and staff. It also makes our data a lot more coherent and accurate,” Stevenson added.
The board has also launched a new notification system that aims to get information to parents faster.
“We wanted to really improve school-to-home communication,” said Stevenson. “We want to make sure the schools have up-to-date email addresses and cellphone numbers on record.”
Stevenson said she’s in the process of training staff at individual schools on how to use the notification system, which will work to notify parents instantaneously of anything they need to be made aware of, from snow days to hold-and-secure directives from police. Board staff will have the option of sending out notices via text, email, voice call or all of the above.
“It will allow us to be able to send out a notification really quickly and easily, and we can do it centrally,” said Stevenson.
The technology used is provided by a company who does 911 services in the U.S.
“It’s very fast and reliable,” said Stevenson.
In the fall, the board will also be launching a new parents portal, where parents can log in and keep track of their child’s attendance and grades.
The program is run through Brightspace, which is a program students and teachers already use currently within the school system. Parents will have their own logins that will allow them to see their child’s progress.
“It’s a learning tool a lot of our teachers are already using,” said Stevenson. “It will link parents to the parent side of the Brightspace learning portal.
“The portal will give parents kind of like a window into that world,” she added.
On the public board side, the Simcoe County District School Board launched a new website and parent registration portal last year as well as a parent volunteer registration portal, and said they have been quite successful.
“We’re always looking for new strategies to connect with the community,” said Sarah Kekewich, the public board's manager of communications. “They’ve been really successful. We’ve seen a large number of folks using the tools.”
Last year, the Simcoe County District School Board saw more than 4,800 students register online and more than 6,300 volunteers register.
Kekewich said the public board tends to point families to their website.
“That’s where we house all sorts of information that parents need to know,” she said. “More and more, things are going online. People like to be able to access resources when it’s convenient for them. It streamlines the service and makes it so wherever you are, you can access it.”
